Jennifer Lawrence to Play Another Innovative Business Woman, This Time For Adam McKay

This might help explain why Jennifer Lawrence is a little too busy to join that female-fronted Ocean’s Eleven spinoff / reboot: The actress has signed on to star in an untitled project for Adam McKay, which — like Joy — casts Lawrence as an ambitious and innovative business woman, but this time she won’t have such a happy ending.

Per Deadline, Lawrence will play Elizabeth Holmes, the 32-year-old founder of Theranos, a medical company start-up that was valued at $9 billion just a couple of years ago. Holmes started the company back in 2003, and claimed that Theranos would revolutionize blood testing with a new system that required only a pinprick of blood instead of a full sample.

More recently, Holmes has come under fire and Theranos is the subject of an investigation following claims of inaccurate test results. The company is also in danger of losing its right to practice for two years due to unresolved problems in one of its labs, and Holmes — who has a 50 percent stake in Theranos — has lost quite a bit of money in the process.

McKay most recently directed the acclaimed financial crisis drama The Big Short, based on Michael Lewis’ best-selling non-fiction book. Though many felt that Lewis’ source material was nearly impossible to adapt, McKay went on to secure five Academy Award nominations and won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. Back in May, McKay was reportedly in talks to direct Irredeemable, a superhero film based on Mark Waid and Peter Krause’s comic book series. It’s unclear if the director is still attached to that project.

Lawrence is currently filming Darren Aronofsky’s new, untitled thriller, and can be seen next opposite Chris Pratt in Passengers, a sci-fi romance film from The Imitation Game director Morten Tyldum.